Resistance has proven futile.

So I hired a life coach to help me, hopefully, make some decisions about what to do with the rest of my life since I can't seem to commit to an option on my own. Two sessions in, the verdict was:

"Ahem, have you noticed your clinical depression? I'm not sure life coaching can benefit you at this point, and I don't like for you to waste your money."

Well, alrighty then.

So after rejecting 21 years of repeated suggestions from various therapists that, perhaps, maybe, a pill might be of some use, I have caved. The pill popping began 2 weeks ago - this is my first week on the full dose. So if I get Wednesday-Adams-locked-in-a-happy-room-with-Disney-movies chipper suddenly? Well, now you'll know why. And if it happens, please don't mention it to me because, needless to say, one part of my dread of taking the pills? Becoming annoyingly chipper.

Google Me and Harry Potter! (The conclusion)

So, my friends, it happened - chipping on into my 15 minutes. You may recall that I was interviewed by the Trib way back when. Well, the story didn't appear and didn't appear and didn't appear, and I figured a trip to Canada just didn't quite make the General Interest cut, which was fine.
Cut to 4 fabulous women in a minivan - piling back in after a quick stop at McDonalds somewhere in Michigan, and, deciding to turn toward a serious discussion of the book we are about to pick up in Canada, Melissa pulls out the section of the Trib with a gigantic headline promising to pose 7 questions HPVII should answer. And we had decided to start speculating our own answers to those 7 questions when - what do I see in bold print?
MY NAME!!!
It's true. There was such an excited yelp - ok - squeal that it caused the driver, M-bee, not a little anxiety. Was a car coming? Was she missing an exit? No - it was just the story of all of us, doing what we were even then in the middle of doing - in the Trib. Almost meta.
Anyway, I've been blocked on posting here for a while - should I put a link to the article? Now, over a month later, I've decided. I should. And here it is. Complete even to the Taggs shout-out.

My Interesting Wake-up Call

I live on a corner of a high-rise building, and my next door neighbors have a door on one side of the corner of the hall and mine is on the other - which is to say our doors are very close. Living next door we have an odd couple - a grandfather and granddaughter - the grandfather is very chatty but always wears the exact same clothes - all the time, for weeks I have noticed no change, and we both have dogs, so I see him rather often, so that is oddity number one. Oddity number two is that the granddaughter is about my age, but looks, not to put too fine a point on it, like a low rent working girl - perhaps an exotic dancer - she is too skanky for Penthouse (and Playboy is completely out of the question) her look consists pretty much entirely of 'I will do everything possible to focus all attention on the investment I make in these two hunks of silicon embedded in my chest' - the weak-no-muscle-skinny rest of the body, the fake tan, the fake blonde and the totally inappropriate clothing - the most we can expect on any given day is that her ass and boobs are mostly covered.

Anyway, 5 a.m. yesterday, I barely register repeated knocks - not on my door, but the door next door. Then I groggily notice a dispute - *then* I hear a female voice saying "I know my rights - you can't come in." - well, it gets louder and louder from there, and it just keeps going on and on, to the point where I get up to look out the peephole to see if this is a situation where I need to call down to the front desk and have them send someone to break it up.It is not - it is four , count 'em, four of Chicago's finest, complete down to bullet proof vests, saying such matter of things to the woman next door as 'Lets not do this in the hall' and 'We just want to check on him and see that he is alright' as she protests saying something about her grandfather.Well, I go back to bed, and, at some point she clearly lets them in, and I start dosing off when, lo, I hear the clear sounds of the woman being dragged off against her will, screaming to her grandfather to 'call Mike! Call *my* Mike!'And then blessed silence. An interesting event, no?

I haven't seen either of them since, but the dogs are still (rather clearly) in the apartment, so one or both of them are there.

Ah - bright lights, big city.

Rah, rah, sis-boom-bah.

'We are bigger than canoeing,' says organiser Bob, when I ask him if cheerleading will hit TV in a blaze of pom-poms. 'We are maybe even bigger than table tennis. So who can say?'

Cheerleading makes its awkward way into the UK - I just loved this article.